Tag Archives: appetite control

I got together with some lovely friends for a sugar-free baking sharing session. It was great to have so many people expressing an interest in reducing the amount of sugar in their diets. We all made a couple of recipes each, and bought them for everyone to try to see if it was something their family might like to eat. We had several kids in tow so many of the recipes can now be certified kid-friendly.

A sharing session like this is great if you are a ‘sugar-freer’, for several reasons.

1) Many sugar-free recipes are REVOLTING. Like, oh-my-god-get-this-abomination-outta-my-mouth-now revolting. This is a great opportunity to try a wide range of recipes and see what ones you actually like, without wasting your time and money.

2) Sugar-free ingredients can be expensive. Alternative sweeteners can be costly, as can other ingredients beloved by those who create SF recipes. There’s nothing more annoying than spending lots of money on cacao nibs and chia seeds, only to find the end result is not your cup of tea. A sharing session is a great way to know whether a certain ingredient is worth your financial investment.

3) It’s a great time to educate others on the benefits of sugar-free living. I can hold court about not eating sugar for hours if allowed, but I seldom get the chance. 🙂 At the sharing session I was asked all sorts of questions, and gave my opinion on the best alternative sweeteners. The others were very interested in just how much not eating sugar has transformed my life – for example, I seldom need snacks or spend much mental energy thinking about food anymore – and they were keen to give it a real go. It’s also a great opportunity to let others know what recipes are really sugar free. There are many recipes out there claiming to be sugar free, but when you read the list of ingredients it has a cup of agave syrup or 2 cups of honey. Yeah, not quite the real deal.

I made a batch of Sarah Wilson’s ‘oreo cookies’ (which are quite nice, but in no way taste anything like the original in case you wondered), and some chocolate/nut balls (which do have dates in them, but are a treat that will please everyone). I came home with a reasonable haul of goodies which disappeared over the next few days, so it was well worth the effort.

Many people would like to give being sugar-free a go, but starting just feels too hard. A little sharing session like this might just be a delicious tipping point.

To be perfectly frank, I’m rather looking forward to waving 2014 goodbye.

I’ve never known such an annus horribulus, and I’m certainly not the only one feeling this way. Apart from my birth of my gorgeous wee son (cue gratuitous Daniel photo)…

… this year is one I will look back on with much fondness. I spent the first seven months in a pregnancy fatigue funk, which fortunately went away as soon as the baby arrived. The fatigue was replaced with the expected sleep deprivation that babies create, although largely due to Daniel having the dreaded reflux.

Reflux. Ugh. How I loathe thee.

For the first few weeks I had an angel baby. He slept well and was putting on weight like a champ. Then he started to get a bit unsettled. Then really screamy. Then his sleep deteriorated. I suspected reflux, but the diagnosis was complicated by the baby getting a nasty virus doing the rounds, and a hidden tongue tie.

Life descended into chaos. The baby screamed ALL day. I’m not exaggerating. Things got so bad we had a friend come every morning to help out, and had to farm out our daughter as much as possible to her grandmothers because it was impossible for me to spend much time with her. Then my daughter got the virus. Followed by D. And then her grandmothers.

So I am the only well person dealing with a sick, screaming baby; a sick, clingy, only-Mummy-will-do toddler; and a sick, sleep-deprived husband. I seriously thought I was going to lose my mind at one point.

Life has gotten less chaotic, although we are still struggling to manage the baby’s reflux, even with medication. But he is ridiculously cute, which helps a lot! He is predictable at least, and I have been able to spend more quality time with my daughter who delights me with her ever-expanding conversational skills (she’s pretty much into full sentences now) and her silly sense of humour.

The worst thing has been my sister-in-law passing away after a short battle with cancer a few weeks ago. She was only 37. She had multiple health conditions for most of her life, which she courageously managed to rise above. She was an inspiration to most people who met her, and my life is certainly richer from having known her. I’m saddened that my children will never appreciate just how much their Auntie loved them and how important they were to her, and it’s been beyond horrible to see my brother suffering the loss of his much-loved partner in life.

So yeah, 2014 can kiss my ass.

In the midst of all the drama of late, I have done what I always do in tough times – turn to food for comfort.

I’m sorry to say I have been indulging in too much of the white stuff of late. It’s incredibly frustrating to find myself reacting in my old ways when life gets tough. You think you have this addiction conquered and then – wham! Oh no you don’t.

It just goes to show that for many of us, food is an incredibly complex issue. It’s so much more than fuel. If losing weight or getting ‘healthy’ is a simple matter of calories in vs. calories out then there should be more of us out there rocking skinny jeans, and I personally would have an entire wardrobe of body-con dresses.

I have worked with addicts a fair bit in my life, and know I need to treat myself with the same compassion that I would them. I know about triggers. I know that relapses happen. I know that over time I will experience them less and less, until I am eventually free.

Like this:

Last week was very ‘ugh’ at our house. Eloise got sick first (and recovered quickly, thank goodness), then D and then me. D and I were so sick we weren’t able to care for Eloise, so she was cared for by a friend from Church until my mother-in-law was able to get her. We are incredibly blessed to have people we can call on at times like these!

Needless to say the 12WBT went out of the window for most of the week, and I’m only at the point now of having enough energy to exercise. I did however lose 3 kilos over 24 hours, but I’d rather not have had the rotavirus to do it 🙂

Today I will start with some gentle exercise and then get back into the programme tomorrow. I can’t wait for this week to be over and done with. Eloise and I are moving to our new town on Wednesday as the movers turn up to pack our stuff, D follows on Friday, and our stuff gets delivered on Saturday. I just want to be unpacked and so we can get on with life!

Now gentle reader, I must confess to eating some sugar yesterday…okay, lots of sugar.

D and I put on morning tea for our church yesterday and I easily resisted the sugary treats on offer there. My sugar resistance mojo was strong, as usual. But last night D and I were sitting watching a movie (totally recommend Now You See Me – best movie I’ve seen in ages) when we suddenly heard the jingle of a Mr Whippy ice cream van. I haven’t had a Mr Whippy ice cream in years. I can only describe that music as being akin to the Pied Piper of Hamelin. It was like D and I were transported back to being six years old. We looked at each other. There was no need for words. I swear D literally flew out the door and came back bearing two ice creams. With ‘Flakes’. Dipped in chocolate. I grabbed mine with the same sort of childish glee I’d reserved for my collection of My Little Ponies and Strawberry Shortcake dolls.

I seriously cannot believe we did that! I don’t even like ice cream that much! That was a trigger I never anticipated.

Neither of us were able to eat our entire cones as they were sickly, and I KNOW we will pay for it today with tiredness and generally feeling rubbish! Anyway, I’m quite confident that there will be no more Mr Whippy cones in my future, no matter how much that tinny version of ‘Greensleeves’ tugs at my childhood heartstrings.

Like this:

It’s been a good three days and I am already down 600g. But then, that’s probably because I’ve been really hungry!

Aside from Monday’s icky bruschetta, the food on the 12WBT has been nice and of course, sugar-free. Monday night’s dinner was really lovely – a lamb salad with mint/yoghurt dressing. It’s definitely a recipe I’d use again.

Yummo!

On the programme you have to weigh all your food which is a total pain, but it’s helped me to realise that my portion sizes have been too big. I simply eat too much. I expect that this is a legacy of years of overeating, even though I am now sugar-free (although I certainly eat less than I did in my sugary days thanks to being sugar-free). I’m going to have to train my body to get used to a bit less food. I’m even on the look out for vintage dinner plates! Did you know the average dinner plate has grown 25% larger since the 1990’s? Here’s a link to an article about how even the colour of your plates and tablecloth can cause you to overeat.

I’ve really missed my protein and needed to eat snacks as a result, so I swapped out the carby/fructosey breakfasts for my usual bacon & egg this morning (yes, that’s allowed on the food plan) and voila! No morning tea required.

My one criticism of the food is that many of the lunches are time-consuming, but I guess as least they can be swapped out for quick sandwiches like this one…

Roast capsicum and olive tapenade sarnie

I have absolutely no complaints about my fitness programme however. Last week I did a baseline fitness test which includes the distance you can run in 12 minutes. I did the 12 minute test again today (every Wednesday is a ‘check-in’ day) and I’ve already increased my distance. The programme has 3 days of running – which includes sprints, and 3 days of core strengthening and toning. I’m doing the intermediate programme and I’ve been delighted to find it challenging but not daunting so far.

I’ve started to run around the Basin Reserve (our local cricket ground) which has turned out to be the perfect place for me to run, after struggling to find somewhere nearby that doesn’t have ginormous hills. It also means I get to end my workouts by going up these steps:

There are 108 steps. Yep, I counted.

You can’t really tell how steep they are in the photo, but nothing gets my heart rate up faster than these babies!

I must admit that I’m not actually a fan of ‘quick’ transformation diets and programmes. Most of them are completely unsustainable, so please don’t think I have any illusions about this one. I’ve never even seen Michelle Bridges in action. You can read about my reasons for signing up to it here. But I must say…I like 12WBT.

I was impressed with the ‘pre-season’ tasks you had to do before the round kicked off this Monday. The goal-setting task made me dig quite deep, and those goals will be revisited every four weeks on the programme. There are a series of mini-milestones you can set yourself too (one of mine is to buy a new dress…sorry D).

One of the tasks was to tell people you are doing the programme, to put it out there, to make yourself accountable. Of all the tasks, this one was the hardest for me – even more so than taking a ‘before’ picture of myself. I felt embarrassed. But I did it, and was immediately inundated with likes and lovely messages of support.

I also like that every few days there is something 12WBT-related going on to keep you in the game. On Sunday night there’s a video message to get your head set for the week, weekly challenges on Mondays, a stats day on Wednesdays, meal and fitness plans for the following week on Thursdays, plus a few other things as well. If you choose to engage with it, there’s probably enough in the programme to keep you on track. I feel it’s doable, but then it’s not a huge lifestyle change for me, given that D and I try to eat healthily and I was exercising regularly anyway. But I reckon even die-hard couch potatoes could do the programme and see results. Whether you can keep it up in ‘real life’ is another story.

I reckon if I can take a good exercise programme and the portion control message out of it, that’s good enough for me.

My 12 week body transformation programme started off with a bit of a hiss rather than a roar. Bad weather scuppered my plans to exercise outdoors (seriously Wellington, what’s with all the wet mornings lately?!), so I worked out to a video on YouTube instead. I was disappointed at not being able to get outside as the 10K exercise plan looks really good. And very achievable. Ah well – tomorrow!

I was laid low over the weekend with a bit of a bug so D did the shopping in preparation for the week – which he described as an ‘epic shop’. It was certainly a lot more expensive than our usual grocery bill, but then we did get some items that we wouldn’t normally buy and which will be used in subsequent weeks (olive tapenade anyone?).

I was excited to get the meal plan, and even more excited to see that the food looked delicious and didn’t require loads of outlandish ingredients. It also didn’t look terribly different from what D and I usually eat, although the lunches are definitely more elaborate. The plans are very flexible, so if you don’t like something you can swap it out for something else that you do like. Personally, I love trying out new recipes, so there’s a few things in this week’s food that I wouldn’t normally cook for D and I.

I must admit that I am very pleased the food plan is flexible as I hated today’s breakfast. It was Strawberry ‘Bruschetta’. I am one of those strange breeds of people who don’t like sweet things for breakfast, but I thought ‘what the heck, I love strawberries’. It took up my fructose allowance for the day, but that’s okay.

The meal was very simple – two pieces of wholemeal toast (the bruschetta), spread with ricotta cheese, topped with strawberries and sprinkled with some raw cacao powder (that was my addition, Michelle’s recipe uses plain cocoa). I love every single item individually, but together it tasted…wrong. I dunno, it’s probably just me being picky, folks.

It looked so yummy!

I ate the breakfast around 8am and was hungry by 10am. By 10:45am I had to have a snack. I normally have a high protein breakfast which keeps me going until 1 or 2pm, so I will definitely be swapping out the bruschetta for a bacon and egg ‘roll’ in the future, as I know I won’t need any snacks.

Fortunately the rest of today’s food looks terrific. They say that 80% of your weight is due to the food you eat, so I will be very interested to see how I look and feel after following the plan.

And on that note, I have been doing a little better than when I last blogged. I got my butt out of bed to exercise several times last week, and tried a really delicious drink designed especially for those suffering from adrenal burnout (thanks so much for that harrisfamilyadventure!). It’s from the book ‘Trim Healthy Mama‘, and the authors advocate a whole food, low carb, low sugar diet. I think the combinations they want you to eat foods in sounds a little complicated (bear in mind I haven’t got my copy yet so I’m just going on what I read on the net) but sustainable, and seems to be changing the lives of thousands of people for the better. I’ve ordered their book and will do a review of it on here at some point. I plan to give it a whirl next year once I’ve finished with 12wbt.

Like this:

I’ve mentioned before about how giving up sugar has given me so much more head space. I thought you might appreciate an illustration of what I mean by that.

Before giving up sugar my days were filled with internal dialogue that went something like this:

9:30am.

‘I’m hungry! I want to eat my morning tea now.’

‘You just ate breakfast! How can you be starving already? Have some self-control and wait another hour’.

‘But pleeeease, I’m starving!’

‘No. If you eat now then you’ll need to eat your lunch early. And then you’ll be starving all afternoon. Just wait‘.

‘Can I have a muffin from the cafe down the street? They make the best muffins. I don’t want that apple. It won’t fill me up.’

‘No. Muffins are bad for you. Now be quiet, I’m trying to work‘.

‘Muffin! Muffin! Muffin! I want muffin! Oh have you seen the muffin man, the muffin man, the muffin man…’

‘Okay, okay, you win. Shut up already. Let’s go get a muffin.‘

‘Wahoo! Can we get a hot chocolate too?’

Sigh.

So I’m basically Gollum from Lord of the Rings 🙂

Sometimes it would be worse, like the internal dialogue when I went to a dinner party…

About 5:30pm

‘Okay, so we have to be there at 6:30pm, but that means we probably won’t sit down to eat until at least 7pm. And the host is never on time for anything anyway, so maybe it’ll be more like 7:30pm…I wonder what she’ll serve us? I hope she’s over that tiny portion haute cuisine phase, because otherwise I may just have to eat D’s arm. And I like his arm attached right where it is. Maybe she’ll make that amazing parfait again though. I loved that. Oooh, I wonder if I should make that raspberry devil’s food cake tomorrow…drool…devil’s food cake…Hmmm, shall I have a snack now? I mean, I’m not hungry at the moment, but I will be by 7:30pm…ok, I’ll have a snack.’

You see what I mean? It’s exhausting!

Nowadays my internal dialogue about food goes something like this:

11:30am

Hi Angela, this is your stomach. I’m a teeny bit hungry, but I’ll be okay to eat later if that’s what you want.

(Often I don’t need to eat lunch until 2pm.)

2:00pm

What does the meal plan say I’m eating for lunch? Ooh, tuna and veggies? Yum!

No wistful fantasies about the decadent desserts I might concoct. No planning my errands to include a stop to buy chocolate. Or muffins. No beating myself up for giving in and eating crap food again. No hiding what I’m eating because I’m ashamed.

Nowadays when I think about food it’s because I am researching good nutrition, or looking up recipes to plan our meals for the week, or deciding what to feed my baby next. I never think ‘Oh my Lord, I would sell my soul for a bar of chocolate’ anymore. I almost never think about chocolate anymore. It’s a miracle, folks.

Our food today was pretty much the same as yesterday’s, so I won’t bore you with the details.

One big difference between today and yesterday: I’m HUNGRY.

I haven’t felt this hungry since before I quit sugar. I’d almost forgotten what it’s like. (These days I hardly ever snack as my three square meals fill me up nicely.) Although it’s not the panic-inducing, gnaw-my-own-arm-off kind of hunger that was fuelled by sugar, my tummy has felt slightly rumbly for most of the day. I also feel tired. It’s so weird, it’s not as if we aren’t eating reasonably well. As I’m not eating sugary things, I can only put it down to a lack of protein.

I saved half a carrot from yesterday’s food, and by mid-afternoon was very glad I’d done so. D and I had carrot sticks dipped in peanut butter which kept us going until dinner. I’ve been eyeing up Eloise’s baby food, but fortunately her pureed chickpea doesn’t look that appealing.

Reflecting on today, I realised until now I have NEVER looked at a loaf of bread to see how many slices it contains so it can be rationed out. I have NEVER carefully measured out how much milk I put on my weetbix. I have always had the money to go buy more if I needed to. Imagine what it’s like not to. And you have kids.

So I will put up with my hunger and be grateful that when I usually feel this way, I have the money to get more food.

My brother’s party was on Saturday night and it was a blast. I got to catch up with family members I hadn’t seen in ages, and even got to meet a long-lost cousin who turned out to be a kindred spirit. Love it when that happens. I wrote a cheeky birthday song for my brother (to the tune of ‘These are a few of my favourite things’) and my ‘choir’ did a fabulous job performing it at the party. I may have found a new career penning silly ditties.

D and I spent several hours decorating the chocolate mudcake I made for J’s party. See here for the story of why I made a sugary cake, and here for my attitude towards the occasional special event. The smell of the fondant icing was extremely sickly and I wondered if I would have noticed it before going sugar-free. The cake decoration turned out much better than I’d hoped, although I certainly have no plans to make any sugary cakes ever again. Any cakes will be strictly dextrose-only.

My brother LOVED his cake and just sat looking at it for several minutes as he didn’t want to cut it! I had a small piece and found it incredibly sweet, and thought the fondant icing was disgusting. But the birthday boy and everyone else thought it was delicious, so job done.

The contentious cake!(Apologies for the poor quality of the photo, our camera has gone missing so this is someone else’s pic. That lumpy looking thing in the corner is actually a detailed half death star.)

It took me aaaaaages to get to sleep that night. Part of that is because I’m an extrovert, so I find it really hard to unwind after a party. Being around large groups of people is very stimulating. However, I’m not usually left lying awake for well over two hours, so I’m attributing part of it to the sugar.

I was definitely hungrier than usual yesterday, and had cravings for soft serve – you know, the stuff so bad it’s not allowed to be called ice cream. Of course, I didn’t actually have any. This morning’s run was so pathetic I abandoned it 10 minutes in, and will try again tomorrow instead.

Am I worried that my recent sugary ‘lapses’ will plunge me back into my sugar-laden days?

Nope.

I girded my loins and went straight back to eating sugar-free.

And that’s the best part of living this way. I have control over food. I no longer stuff myself with sweets or biscuits (cookies) because the cravings for them overwhelm me. I no longer feel ashamed for giving in to my cravings again and again and again. In the old days, I would have used eating some birthday cake as an excuse to quit my current diet. But not anymore. Oh, the freedom! It’s not an exaggeration to say that for me, this is nothing short of a miracle.

Eating some birthday cake was a conscious choice, and I knew what the consequences would be. And while we’re at it, I really hate the term ‘lapse’. I prefer to think of them as part of normal life, now reserved only for super-special occasions (given the frequency of special events in my social calendar!).

I just wrote that for posterity’s sake so that in a couple of years time if she throws a tantrum about eating her veges, I can say ‘I’m sorry darling, but you like Spinach. It’s an established fact. See, it says so here.’

At eight months Eloise hasn’t (so far) shown a preference for sweet foods. I’ve been quite surprised! She tucked into spinach last night, and loves avocado, pumpkin and chickpeas. Apart from baby custards, the only sweet things she eats are pieces of fruit. She makes hilarious faces at the tartness of mandarins, but it doesn’t stop her from eating them, and she’s discovered what a glorious mess she can make with banana. I’m looking forward to introducing her to berries as they start to come into season here.

I’m proud to say Eloise is a Vegemite kid!

Eloise’s journey into the big, wide world of food has gotten me thinking about what values or ideas about food I grew up with, and what I’d like to do differently.

My family had many unspoken messages about food when I was growing up, some of which were:

Sweet treats are a reward for doing something good

All of life’s celebrations require food

Some food is ‘bad’ or ‘naughty’

Overeating is ok if everyone else is doing it (e.g. Christmas)

Healthy food is boring, but a necessary evil

Being a picky eater is ok (my Dad! Bless him.)

My parents are not bad people. They wanted the best for us. I don’t think the messages I grew up with around food are all that different from most families. My mother in particular, had her own issues with food. She tried many different diets, and even as a child I could see that she felt ashamed when she would ‘cave in’ and quit her diet.

Breaking my sugar addiction has freed me to work on my own issues with food. Now I’m no longer at the mercy of my cravings, it’s easier to focus on choosing healthy food. Today I can say that my diet is great 90% of the time. In my sugary past, I would have struggled to have gone even one day without eating chocolate or some other type of junk food. Most of my attempts at dieting only ever lasted a few days before I would fall off the wagon.

It won’t be easy, but here are the values about food that I would like Eloise to grow up with:

Normally I am careful not to schedule too much over a weekend, due to recovering from burnout. But this weekend was a fun-filled, female extravaganza! On Saturday I saw a show with friends, and then went to an epic girl’s night; and spent Sunday afternoon at an art exhibition with more friends. D was great about being left with Eloise most of the weekend so I was free to enjoy myself without any ‘mummy guilt’.

On Saturday night I caught up with friends that I haven’t seen in ages – isn’t that just the best thing for your soul? We had a blast painting our nails, drinking champagne and watching ‘Pitch Perfect’. Bliss. Being a girl’s night it also involved lots of indulgent food.

I didn’t have much time to prepare anything, so I whipped up another version of Alex’s Raw Banana Cream Pie, because its so quick to make. The theme of the evening was pink (my friend’s partner made himself scarce to avoid pinkness overload), so I threw in some frozen raspberries to make the filling pink.

I managed to take a decent picture of it this time!

I was in an indulgent mood (no doubt aided by champagne!) and tried some of the other desserts on offer. I had some strawberry and white chocolate cheesecake, and some strawberries filled with chocolate mousse. I’m not gonna lie – they were delicious. I didn’t overdo it though, as they were both very rich.

To my surprise, I felt fine the next day. Perhaps I can eat a bit of sugar and still be ok, I wondered. Nope.

On Monday I woke feeling like I hadn’t slept a wink. Instead of going for a run, I turned off the alarm, rolled over and tried to get back to sleep. The feeling of lethargy stayed with me all day. My body ached, especially around my joints. I was much hungrier than usual, needing snacks in the afternoon as well as after dinner. I really craved some chocolate.

Today (Tuesday) I still have that slug-like feeling, although I dragged my butt out of bed and went for a 20 minute run. I think your Grandma could probably have passed me in her walker, I was going so slow. I’m still hungrier than usual, but so far haven’t needed any snacks. My body feels like it could do with a decent massage though.

It will be interesting to see how long the effects of that sugar linger in my body. Some people report taking a week to get back to normal, others take two weeks.

Most of us have had a lifetime of eating sugar. It’s hard to fathom what it must have done to my body for all those years, if you look at the reaction I had to just a little bit of sugar. It blows my mind. I was so caught in the sugar rush/crash cycle it obviously felt normal to me.

I’d like to be able to avoid eating sugar all the time, but I have two very special occasions coming up where I intend to eat more sugar. My brother’s 40th birthday is in three weeks and I’m pretty damn sure I will eat a piece of the cake I’m making for him. Then at the end of September I am flying to Australia for a friend’s wedding. Instead of presents, the bride and groom have asked us to pay for our meals. As my meal is costing about $120 NZ dollars, I feel compelled to eat everything they give us! And yes, I know I could simply not eat birthday or wedding cake, but it’s not like my brother turns 40 or I go to overseas weddings every day.

After these events it will be smooth sailing until Christmas, but I’m resigned to feeling a bit rubbish for some of September.